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I come from a climate where thunderstorms are rare but not totally non-existent. We hear a thunderclap maybe three times a year and have a true thunderstorm (never intense though) maybe once every 2 years. In 2012, we had two of them (the larger one being in April and the smaller one being in early September). People went to the window and enjoyed the show, laughing and cheering on the thunderclaps and flashes in the sky.The only one I know who doesn't enjoy thunderstorms is my dog who shakes and hides under the bed.

If you live (or had lived) in a place without thunder, was your experience the same? Also, I have never experienced an intense thunderstorm before. Is it scary? I've had someone tell me most Californians would freak out in terror if they saw a mid-west style thunderstorm. If you grew up in a thunder-less climate and then moved to one with thunderstorms, were they scary at first? Or did you find them exciting?

I want to experience a big time thunderstorm just to see what they like!

We've had a number of severe events with flooding, large hail and damaging winds over the last few years.

The cloud formations, wall clouds, churning updrafts/downdrafts, towering CBs, darkness during the day, flash flooding, the sound of large hail bashing your roof and close lightning strikes could well panic someone who's never been in that situation, but then again, someone else might relish it. It depends on the person I guess.

Close lightning strikes are perhaps the scariest aspect of storms, because you don't know when it's coming and when it does it is blinding and sounds like a gunshot or an explosion. I've even heard a "pop" followed by loud rumbling. If it's close enough, thunder will rattle your windows.

I come from a climate where thunderstorms are rare but not totally non-existent. We hear a thunderclap maybe three times a year and have a true thunderstorm (never intense though) maybe once every 2 years. In 2012, we had two of them (the larger one being in April and the smaller one being in early September). People went to the window and enjoyed the show, laughing and cheering on the thunderclaps and flashes in the sky.The only one I know who doesn't enjoy thunderstorms is my dog who shakes and hides under the bed.

If you live (or had lived) in a place without thunder, was your experience the same? Also, I have never experienced an intense thunderstorm before. Is it scary? I've had someone tell me most Californians would freak out in terror if they saw a mid-west style thunderstorm. If you grew up in a thunder-less climate and then moved to one with thunderstorms, were they scary at first? Or did you find them exciting?

I want to experience a big time thunderstorm just to see what they like!

We have a couple of thunderstorms every year but sometimes we can get several or none. But, yes I do enjoy them. They are very weak though and we only get about 10 claps at the very most out of an individual storm.

They are very weak and pretty crappy compared to the storms in Florida.
Although the south of england gets quite a few compared to here. In general in the uk the further north you go the less you get, I believe the Shetlands get no thunder most years.

Most of our thunderstorms are caused by convective systems moving in from the atlantic in the summer. But I heard thundersnow twice this winter.

Buxton doesn't get a lot of storms, but last year on June 28th there was a storm with continuous lightning/thunder, unfortunately it didn't come straight overhead. Buxton does a bit worse than the rest of the UK averaging about half the number of "thunder days" a year as the East Midlands which gets 15 per year on average. I saw some great storms when I was at Uni over there inc. a severe thunderstorm in September 2006 which produced tornadoes. I was caught outside in that when some very bright, close CG's struck in close proximity and you could feel it shaking the ground. SE England can get some violent thunderstorms. Saw several supercells and also incredible strobe lightning displays down there. In fact the UK will get severe thunderstorms somewhere every year, inc. large hail and/or tornadoes.

Most recently, there was an intense thunderstorm here on January 31st, with frequent overhead lightning/instant thunderclaps and heavy (but small) hail. It was a squall line feature associated with an occluded front with strong lifting.

I grew up in southern California, they were pretty rare. Lived in Seattle and same, pretty rare. Im now in Georgia and wow. I can see how they can be terrifying to many but I absolutely love them.

We had a pretty good storm move through yesterday evening. 1400 lightning strikes an hour. You have to respect the stuff though. We have had many trees in our yard hit. They light up like a match. Had a few trees come down, and once, had a strike that burned up our well pump, several tv's, phones, and other electronics.

When they are that close, the sound and feel of the thunder is amazing.

We don't do too badly for storms in an average year, in fact, in 2010 and prior years, we did very well, but 2011 and 2012 were quite horrific, 2011 had about 2 or 3 storms, 2012 had NO overhead storms, but multiple came very close with one having almost constant lightning and thunder. People here take notice of thunderstorms and get excited by them, and if it's particularly bad, people will still be talking about it the day after i.e the 15 June 2009 thunderstorm, people were raving about that for a while, and everyone at my workplace were either at the window watching it or at the lobby doors to get a better view of the rain pouring down, turning the streets into torrents - joined by members of the public looking for shelter. Over 20mm of rain fell in the space of around 15 - 20 minutes, accompanied by hail, thunder so loud it shook the building and power outages/flash flooding.

Sorry, I appeared to have rambled on a bit there - I'll gladly sacrifice a cold, snowy winter next year for a great thunderstorm season this year. Oh, how I miss my storms.

The cloud formations, wall clouds, churning updrafts/downdrafts, towering CBs, darkness during the day, flash flooding, the sound of large hail bashing your roof and close lightning strikes could well panic someone who's never been in that situation, but then again, someone else might relish it. It depends on the person I guess.

I think I'd relish I would it as long as I was indoors in a safe place but won't know for sure until I was in the situation. In the other hand, my dog would literally scared to death- poor thing shakes in terror when we have a few light thunderclaps. Do dogs who live in places with lots of thunder get used to it eventually?

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